NAGPUR: With municipal elections round the corner, Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) has announced two major pro-poor schemes. It will build over 16,000 houses for economically weaker sections (EWS) and low income group (LIG) families. It will also provide ownership documents to residents of 52 slums built on its land.

Complying with the directive of the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court, NIT will construct 10 mini sewage treatment plants (STPs) on Nag, Pili and Pora rivers. The total capacity of the STPs is 65.3 million litres per day (MLD).

Addressing a press conference on Friday, NIT chairman Dipak Mhaisekar said in the first phase the agency would construct 1,268 houses for EWS.

“These schemes will come up at Wathoda and Wanjri in 18 months. In the next phase, we will build 15,196 houses for EWS and LIGs. The beneficiaries will be selected by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) but we will physically verify the documents before handing over the possession of houses. We will try to give houses at the location of their choice. However, this is subject to availability, and if the number of beneficiaries is more, then a draw of lots will be held,” he said.

Mhaisekar said the work on the second phase will begin before the first phase is complete. “We will start as soon as land use is changed and approved by the urban development department.”

Some residents of Dipti Sigmal (East), Adarsh Nagar, Nehru Nagar, Prajapati Nagar, New Panther Nagar and Pandhrabodi will get ownership documents. The total number of beneficiaries is about 500. “We have started a survey in slums built on our land. It is partly complete in these six slums. The residents will not be given individual ownership but group ownership. We have formed groups of 80 to 100 residents for the purpose,” Mhaisekar said.

The chairman said the ten STPs will be constructed using all three available technologies — sequential batch reactor, soil biotechnology developed by IIT (Powai) and phytorial developed by NEERI. “The total cost of the project is Rs130 crore. The STPs will be completed in 18 months,” he added.

These STPs will go a long way in cleaning the three polluted rivers of the city. They will also reduce the load of NMC and Mahagenco, which have STPs at Bhandewadi, downstream.